THE SEPARATION.
"Mr. Denis Oglethorpe has gone away. He will not come back again until
July, when he is to marry Miss Gower."
This was the last entry recorded in the little pink-and-gold journal,
and after it came a gap of months.
It was midnight after the memorable day spent in Broome street that the
record was made, and having made it, Theodora North shut the book with a
startled feeling that she had shut within its pages an unfinished page
of her life.
It was a strange feeling to have come upon her so suddenly, and there
was a strange kind of desperateness in its startling strength. It was
startling; it had come upon her without a moment's warning, it seemed,
and yet, if she had been conscious of it, there had been warning enough.
Warning enough for an older woman--warning enough for Denis Oglethorpe;
but it had not seemed warning to a girl of scarcely seventeen years. But
she understood it now; she had understood it the moment he told her in
that strained, steady voice that he was going away. She had delivered
his message to Lady Throckmorton, and listened quietly to her wandering
comments, answering them as best she could. She had waited patiently
until Sir Dugald's barbarous eleven o'clock supper was over, and then
she had gone to her room, stirred the fire, and dropped down upon the
hearth-rug to think it over. She thought over it for a long time, her
handsome eyes brooding over the red coals, but after about half an hour
she spoke out aloud to the silence of the room.
"He loved me," she said. "He loved me--me. Poor Priscilla! Ah, poor
Priscilla! How sorry I am for you."
She was far more sorry for Priscilla than she was for herself, though it
was Priscilla who had won the lover, and herself who had lost him
forever. She cared for him so much more deeply than she realized as yet,
that she would rather lose him, knowing he loved her, than win him
feeling uncertain. The glow in her eyes died away in tears, but she was
too young to realize despair or anything like it. The truth was that the
curious enchantment of the day had not been altogether sad, and at
seventeen one does not comprehend that fate can be wholly bitter, or
that some turn in fortune is not in store for the future, however
hopeless the present may seem.
In this mood the entry was made in the little journal, and having made
it, Theodora North cried a little, hoped a little, and wondered
guilelessly how matters could end with perfect justice to Priscilla
Gower.
The household seemed rather quiet after the change. Mr. Denis Oglethorpe
was a man to be missed under any circumstances--and Theo was not the
only one who missed him. Lady Throckmorton missed him also, but she had
the solace of her novels and her chocolate, which Theo had not. Novels
had been delightful at Downport, when they were read in hourly fear of
the tasks that always interfered to prevent any indulgence; but in those
days, for some reason, they were not as satisfactory as they appeared
once, and so being thrown on her own resources, she succumbed to the
very natural girlish weakness of feeling a sort of fascination for
Broome street. It was hard to resist Broome street, knowing that there
must be news to be heard there, and so she gradually fell into the habit
of paying visits, more to Miss Elizabeth Gower than to her niece. The
elder Miss Gower was always communicative, and always ready to talk
about her favorites, and to Theo, in her half-puzzled, half-sad frame of
mind, this was a curious consolation. The two spent hours together,
sometimes, in the tiny parlor, stumbling over Berlin wool difficulties,
and now and then wandering to and fro, conversationally, from Priscilla
to the octagon-stitch, and from the octagon-stitch to Denis.
Priscilla was prone to reserve, and rarely joined them in their talks;
and, besides, she was so often busy, that if she had felt the
inclination to do so, she had not time to indulge it. But she was even
more silent than she had seemed at first, Theo thought, and she was sure
her pale, handsome face was paler, though, of course, that was easily to
be accounted for by her lover's absence.
She was a singular girl this Priscilla Gower. The first time Theo ever
saw her display an interest in anybody, or in anything, was when she
first heard Pamela's love-story mentioned.
She was sitting at work near them, when Theo chanced to mention Arthur
Brunwalde, and, to her surprise, Priscilla looked up from her desk
immediately.
"He was your sister's lover, was he not?" she said, with an abrupt
interest in the subject.
"Yes," answered Theo; "but he died, you know."
Priscilla nodded.
"The week before their wedding-day," she said. "Mr. Oglethorpe told me
so."
Theo answered in the affirmative again.
"And poor Pam could not forget him," she added, her usual tender
reverence for poor Pam showing itself in her sorrowing voice. "She was
very pretty then, and Lady Throckmorton was angry because she would not
marry anybody else; but Pamela never cared for anybody else."
Priscilla got up from her chair, and, coming to the hearth, leaned
against the low mantel, pen in hand. She looked down on Theodora North
with a curious expression in her cold, handsome eyes.
"Is your sister like you?" she asked.
Her tone was such a strange one that Theo lifted her face with a faint,
startled look.
"No," she replied, almost timidly. "Pamela is fairer than I am, and not
so tall. We are not alike at all."
"I was not thinking of that," said Priscilla. "I was wondering if you
were alike in disposition. I think I was wondering most whether you
would be as faithful as Pamela."
"That is a strange question," Miss Elizabeth interposed. "Theodora has
not been tried."
But Priscilla was looking straight at Theo's downcast eyes.
"But I think Theodora knows," she said, briefly. "Are you like your
sister in that, Theodora? I remember hearing Mr. Oglethorpe say once you
would be."
Theo dropped her ivory crochet-needle, and bent to pick it up, with a
blurred vision and nervous fingers.
"I cannot tell," she said. "I am not old enough to know yet."
"You are seventeen," said Priscilla. "I knew at seventeen."
Theo recovered the needle, and reset it in her work to give herself
time, and then she looked up and faced her questioner bravely, in a sort
of desperateness.
"If I knew that I loved any one. If I had ever loved any one as Pamela
loved Mr. Brunwalde, I should be like Pamela," she said. "I should never
love any one else."
From that time she fancied that Priscilla Gower liked her better than
she had done before; at any rate, she took more notice of her, though
she was never effusive, of course.
She talked to her oftener, and seemed to listen while she talked, even
though she was busy at the time. She said to her once that she would
like to know Pamela; and, emboldened by this, Theo ventured to bring one
of Pam's letters to read to her; and when she had read it, told the
whole story of her sister's generosity in a little burst of enthusiastic
love and gratitude that fairly melted tender-hearted old Miss Elizabeth
to tears, and caused her to confide afterward to Theo the fact that she
herself had felt the influence of the tender passion, in consequence of
the blandishments of a single gentleman of uncertain age, whose
performances upon the flute had been the means of winning her
affections, but had unhappily resulted in his contracting a fatal cold
while serenading on a damp evening.
"He used to play 'In a Cottage near a Wood,' my dear, most beautifully,"
said Miss Elizabeth, wild with pathos, "though I regret to say that, as
we did not live in a musical neighborhood, the people next door did not
appreciate it; the gentleman of the house even going so far as to say
that he was not sorry when he died, as he did a few weeks after the cold
settled on his dear weak lungs. He was the only lover I ever had, my
dear Theodora, and his name was Elderberry, a very singular name, by the
way, but he was a very talented man."
When Theo went into the little back bedroom that evening to put on her
hat, Priscilla Gower went with her, and, as she stood before the
dressing-table buttoning her sacque, she was somewhat puzzled by the
expression on her companion's face. Priscilla had taken up her muff, and
was stroking the white fur, her eyes downcast upon her hand as it moved
to and fro, the ring upon its forefinger shining in the gaslight.
"I had a letter from Mr. Oglethorpe yesterday," Priscilla said, at last.
"He is in Vienna now; he asked if you were well. To-night I shall answer
him. Have you any message to send?"
"I?" said Theo. It seemed to her so strange a thing for Miss Priscilla
Gower to say, that her pronoun was almost an interjection.
"I thought, perhaps," said Priscilla, quietly, "that a message from you
would gratify him, if you had one to send."
Theo took up her gloves and began to draw them on, a sudden feeling of
pain or discomfort striking her. It was a feeling scarcely defined
enough to allow her to decide whether it was real pain or only
discomfort.
"I do not think I have any message to send," she replied. "Thank you,
Miss Priscilla."
She took her muff then, and went back to the parlor to kiss Miss
Elizabeth, in a strange frame of mind. She was beginning to feel more
strangely concerning Mr. Denis Oglethorpe, and it was Priscilla Gower
who had stirred her heart. She found Lady Throckmorton waiting at home
for her, to her surprise, in a new mood. She had that evening received a
letter from Denis herself, and it had suggested an idea to her.
"I have been thinking, Theo," she said, "that we might take a run over
the Channel ourselves. I have not been in Paris for four years, and I
believe the change would do me good. The last time I visited the Spas,
my health improved greatly."
It was just like her ladyship to become suddenly possessed of a whim,
and to follow its lead on the spur of the moment. She was a woman of
caprices, and her caprices always ruled the day, as this one did, to
Theo's great astonishment. It seemed such a great undertaking to
Theodora, this voyage of a few hours; but Lady Throckmorton regarded it
as the lightest of matters. To her it was only the giving of a few
orders, being uncomfortably sea-sick for a while, and then landing in
Calais, with a waiting-woman who understood her business, and a
man-servant who was accustomed to travelling. So when Theo broke into
exclamations of pleasure and astonishment, she did not understand either
her enthusiasm or her surprise.
"What," she said, "you like the idea, do you? Well, I think I have made
up my mind about it. We could go next week, and I dare say we could
reach Vienna before Denis Oglethorpe goes away."
Theo became suddenly silent. She gave vent to no further exclamations.
She would almost have been willing to give up the pleasure of the
journey after that. She was learning that it was best for her not to see
Denis Oglethorpe again, and here it seemed that she must see him in
spite of herself, even though she was conscientious enough to wish to do
what was best, not so much because it was best for herself, as because
it was just to Priscilla Gower. But Lady Throckmorton had come to a
decision, and forthwith made her preparations. She even wrote to Vienna,
and told Denis that they were coming, herself and Theodora North, and he
must wait and meet them if possible.
It was a great trial to Theodora, this. She was actually girlish and
sensitive enough to fancy that Mr. Denis Oglethorpe might imagine their
intention to follow him was some fault of hers, and she was
uncomfortable and nervous accordingly. She hoped he would have left
Vienna before the letter reached him; she hoped he might go away in
spite of it; she hoped it might never reach him at all. And yet, in
spite of this, she experienced an almost passionately keen sense of
disappointment when, on the day before their departure, Lady
Throckmorton received a letter from him regretting his inability to
comply with her request, and announcing his immediate departure for some
place whose name he did not mention. Business had called him away, and
Lady Throckmorton, of course, knew what such business was, and how
imperative its demands were.
"He might have waited," Theo said to herself, with an unexpected,
inconsistent feeling of wretchedness. "I would have stayed anywhere to
have seen him only for a minute. He had no need to be so ready to go
away." And then she found herself burning all over, as it were, in her
shame at discovering how bold her thoughts had been.
Perhaps this was the first time she really awoke to a full consciousness
of where she had drifted. The current had carried her along so far, and
she had not been to blame, because she had not comprehended her danger;
but now it was different. She was awakening, but she was at the edge of
the cataract, and its ominous sounds had alarmed her.